Hi Everyone,
Phil, I really enjoyed my Academy F-4B, the build was fine with the exception of having to install the landing gear early in the build. Painting was a breeze, and then came “Death by Stencil”! I found that doing the insignia and main big decals first, followed by the stencils on the underside wing tips to centerline, and crossing off the decal number on the placement diagram as I went along. Took four days. I’ll admit, yes it was worth it, just took a long and tedious time. Hang in there, I’m sure you can do it!
To those of you that were following along in Hangar Queen XIII, the work on my F-8 Crusader made good progress, and it has spilled over into 2024. The Hasegawa kit is fantastic, as are the Furball decals. I chose to do a bird from VF-111 off of Intrepid in 1968, which was a F-8C, for this build I merely omitted the IR sensor off the nose (I think that’s what it was) and filled the hole, I let the larger nose ride. For my audience and myself I’d call it fine, one thing Hasegawa is not so good about is providing different ordinance, while I get the desire to increase sales, it still is a bit of a pain. For this build I’d need some AIM-9 sidewinders, while the “Y” type missile launchers are included, the ordinance is only Zunni missiles are included. Off to my spares box, and getting four AIM-9’s from the Academy F-4B build, thanks Academy! I had no decals for the missiles either, so off to the F-14 kit and steal the decals for the missiles as I intend to purchase the Furball F-14 ordinance set. Problem solved!
While I was letting the missiles dry, I completed the decaling process, the stencils were not as numerous as the F-4B, and process went quite smoothly.
I then followed up by giving the bird a panel line wash.
With everything looking pretty good, I decided it was time to remove the masks. This was a disappointment, as it seems there was leakage and maring of the clear part.
This was remedied by sanding the offending mar out, and then using finer sanding grits, and finally polishing sticks. This worked quite well, and since I’d taped off the painted area there was no need to repaint!
The missiles were then mounted to the launchers, they fit fine, though a bit fiddly.
The launchers were then attached, and the few fiddly bits were added. Thankfully I noticed the pitot tube as I was cutting the sprue to recycle it! Whew, disaster averted! I didn’t glue the tail and wings on as the fit is quite good.
Next up is let it sit, and then come back for a final walk through to see if I missed anything, hopefully not, and then some pictures and conclusions.
Till next time, be safe, wash your hands and have fun!
) .
. I will go on to the end whatever the cost… I mean end may be with this one 
